So, I edited this a bit, after years of neglect. Tell me what you think?
Takes place after Lazarus Rising. Does not faithfully follow the storyline. Bobby has a weird niece.
"Yeah?" Bobby answered the phone.
"Bobby?"
"Yeah?" he repeated.
"It's me."
"Who's 'me'?" he asked.
"Dean."
Bobby didn't even respond. He simply hung up. The wound was still too fresh. He turned back to the grilled cheese sandwiches he was making just as the phone rang again. He turned the heat off.
"Who is this?" Annoyance crept over his voice.
"Bobby, listen to me."
"This ain't funny. Call again, I'll kill ya." The older man sat by the kitchen table and sighed. He looked up at the noise by the door and saw a woman walking down the hall, rubbing her wet hair with a towel. She looked in the kitchen as she passed and stopped walking when she saw Bobby, a concerned look on her face.
"You okay?" she entered the kitchen.
"Yeah. Just a prank call." Bobby stood up and put the sandwiches on a plate.
"Hm." The woman frowned at the food. "No wonder you're getting fat, old man." She winked playfully at him.
"You want real food, you go buy groceries and make it yourself." Bobby patted her arm affectionately before he went back to his library.
The rest of the day was quiet. A couple of phone calls, a failed attempt to contact Sam, and the promise of a real dinner later, Bobby was ready to call it a day, when he was startled by pounding on his door.
On the doorstep was Dean, looking winded and apprehensive. He smiled cautiously. Bobby looked at him suspiciously.
"Surprise."
"I, I don't..."
"Yeah, me neither." Dean entered. "But here I am."
Behind his back, Bobby took the silver knife he knew was sitting on the table behind him. As Dean approached, Bobby lunged forward and slashed at him. Dean grabbed his arm and twisted it around, but Bobby broke the grip and backhanded him in the face.
"Bobby! It's me!"
"My ass!" This must be some shapeshifter, Bobby tried to reason with his confused brain.
The Dean impersonator shoved a chair between himself and Bobby and held his hands out.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa, wait! Your name is Robert Steven Singer. You became a hunter after your wife got possessed, and... you're about the closest thing I have to a father. Bobby. It's me." It tried to convince the older man.
Bobby lowered the knife and stepped forward slowly. He placed a hand gently on 'Dean's' shoulder. Suddenly he slashed again, but Dean quickly disarmed him.
"I'm not a shapeshifter!"
"Then you're a Revenant!"
The Revenant shoved Bobby away, having taken the knife. He held it out in front of him.
"Alright." It said, "If I was either, could I do this with a silver knife?" It rolled up his left sleeve, and, grimacing, sliced his arm above the elbow with the knife. A line of blood appeared.
"Dean?"
"That's what I've been trying to tell you."
Bobby finally broke, grabbing Dean in for a tight hug. Dean returned the hug with enthusiasm, relief on his face. They pulled apart.
"It's... It's good to see you, boy." The older man struggled to hold back tears.
"Yeah, you too." Dean laughed.
"But... how did you bust out?"
"I don't know. I just, uh, I just woke up in a pine box..." Dean turned to throw the knife on the table, and when he looked back at Bobby a faceful of holy water splashed in his face. He paused, then spit some to the side.
"I'm not a demon either, you know."
"Sorry. Can't be too careful." Bobby shrugged.
As they went further into the house, Dean wiped his face on a towel.
"But... that don't make a lick of sense." Bobby was still trying to wrap his head around the situation.
"Yeah. Yeah, you're preachin' to the choir."
"Dean." Bobby looked at him seriously. "Your chest was ribbons, your insides were slop. And you've been buried four months. Even if you could slip out of hell and back into your meat suit…"
"I know, I should look like a thriller video reject."
"What do you remember?"
"Not much. I remember I was a Hellhound's chew toy, and then..."
They were interrupted by the sound of a car pulling over outside and a door slamming.
"Uncle Bobby, I got some stuff for dinner, and I found these books in New Orleans I had forgotten to take out of the trunk last night, I'm gonna put them on…the…desk…hi."
Dean turned around to see a woman dressed in light blue jeans, a white t-shirt, and what looked to be one of Bobby's shirts, sleeves rolled up and tips tied around her waist. Long dark blonde curls were tied to a high pony tail, and her bangs were damp with sweat.
"Dean, this is Alice. Sweetie, this is Dean." Bobby introduced them.
"Dead Dean?" she asked cautiously.
"Yes, but you see—ALICE!"
BANG
"What the hell is wrong with you, woman?" Dean called from the floor, where he fell due to the impact of the bullet currently in his shoulder.
"Alice, it's him, I tested." Bobby stood between her and Dean.
"You sure?" she looked over Bobby's shoulder at the man sitting up on the floor.
"Yes, look, the silver bullet isn't even smoking."
"Hm…fair enough" she shrugged and put her gun into the back of her jeans. She pulled a knife from her brown combat boots. "How 'bout this?"
"Alice, NO." Bobby took the knife from her.
"Are you nuts, woman?" Dean stood and made his way to the nearest chair, where he took his previously discarded towel and pressed it to his wound.
"My, that glare could melt an iceberg...shame you weren't around to save the Titanic." Alice turned and went up the stairs. Bobby sighed and sat behind his desk, looking over the books Alice had brought. "Uncle Bobby?" they heard from upstairs.
"Yes, sweetie." Bobby answered tiredly.
"Where's the first aid kit?"
"Under the sink, next to the towels."
"Uncle Bobby? Sweetie?" Dean raised an eyebrow at Bobby and smirked.
"Shut up, ya idjit, and put pressure on that." Dean thought he saw a tinge of a blush creep up Bobby's cheeks, but then Alice pulled a chair in front of him and plopped down, the first aid kit in her lap. Dean pulled the towel away and watched as she cut through the fabric of his shirt and took some pliers.
"So." She started cleaning his wound. "How'd you get back?"
"As I was saying before I was SHOT..." he shot an accusatory glare at the woman before him. "OUCH! What the fuck, you did that on purpose!"
"What now?" Bobby asked, without looking up from the book.
"She pushed her finger in the bullet hole!"
"I have no idea what you're talking about."
"Alice..." Bobby sighed tiredly.
"What's the deal with you two?" Dean asked, wincing as she continued cleaning his wound.
"He's my uncle." She said nonchalantly as she lifted the pliers and clicked them together a couple of times. "Okay, party time." She started extracting the bullet. A couple of minutes later, she held it up victoriously.
"Butch." Dean rolled his shoulder and prepared for stitches.
"Pussy." She sowed away at his skin while he continued to explain his story to Bobby.
"Anyway, all I remember is the hellhound, then lights out. Then I come to six feet under, that was it. Sam's number's not working." He looked worriedly at Bobby. "He's, uh...he's not..."
"Oh, he's alive. As far as I know."
"Good...wait, what do you mean, as far as you know?"
"I haven't talked to him for months."
"You're kidding, you just let him go off by himself?"
"He was dead set on it."
"Bobby, you should've been looking after him."
"He tried." Alice cut in, putting her things away. "These last months haven't been exactly easy, you know. For anyone. They had to bury you."
"Why did you bury me, anyway?"
"I wanted you salted and burned. Usual drill. But... Sam wouldn't have it." Bobby shrugged.
"Well, I'm glad he won that one."
"He said you'd need a body when he got you back home somehow. That's about all he said."
"What do you mean?" Dean asked suspiciously.
"He was quiet. Real quiet. And then he just took off. Wouldn't return my calls. I tried to find him, but he didn't want to be found."
"Oh, damnit, Sammy." Dean took the spare shirt Alice offered.
"What?"
"Oh, he got me home okay. But whatever he did, it is bad mojo."
"What makes you so sure?" Alice asked.
"You should have seen the grave site. It was like a nuke went off. And then there was this...this force, this presence, I don't know, but it, it blew past me at a fill-up joint. And then this." He took off his ruined shirt and showed tem his shoulder, where a hand shaped burn was.
"What in the hell?" Bobby stood up to take a closer look.
"It was like a demon just yanked me out. Or rode me out."
"But why?"
"To hold up their end of the bargain."
"You think Sam made a deal."
"I don't think so." Alice ran her index finger critically over the mark.
"Have you seen this before?" Dean asked.
"I have." She stood up and looked pensive. "give me a minute to be sure…" packing up the first aid kit, she disappeared back upstairs.
"Yeah, hi, I have a cell phone account with you guys, and uh, I lost my phone. I was wondering if you could turn the GPS on for me." Dean said into the speaker. "Yeah. Name's Wedge Antilles…Social is 2-4-7-4. Thank you." He hung up the phone and started searching on the computer.
"How'd you know he'd use that name?" Bobby asked.
"You kiddin' me? What don't I know about that kid?" he scoffed. "Hey, Bobby? What's the deal with the liquor store? What, are your parents out of town or something?"
"Like I said. Last few months ain't been all that easy." Bobby grimaced.
"…Right…Sam's in Pontiac, Illinois."
"Right near where you were planted."
"Right where I popped up. Hell of a coincidence, don't you think?"
"Sweetie?" Bobby called up the stairs, ignoring Deans guffaw. "Dean and I are going for Sam, you gonna be okay?"
"Okay!"
"What are you laughing at, ya idjit?" he scowled at Dean.
Alice heard the front door close and rested her forehead on the book she was pouring over. She wished she were wrong, but chances were slim. She realized after a few seconds, the buzzing in her head wasn't actually in her head, and was gradually getting louder, morphing into a high pitched sound.
Suddenly, all noise stopped. Even the whirring of her ceiling fan.
Resolutely holding firm against the first stirrings of a headache, Alice rose from the comfort of her padded chair (though padded walls might be nice, come to think of it…) and took her gun.
She listened for any sounds in or outside the house. A knock on her bedroom door startled her, and she strode forward to wrench the door open and point her gun out into the hall at her…visitor.
The man was wearing a khaki trench coat and was looking at the gun pointed at him. He seemed amused at it, but his facial expressions were difficult to read.
"Who are you?" Alice asked, twitching at every movement of the man. The house was riddled with devil's traps and other tricky-to-get-around protections, there was no way this guy could have made it to the second floor.
"We've talked before, Alice." The man stepped closer. Alice shot him instinctively in the chest. He didn't even blink.
"What are you?" she stepped back as he came even closer.
"I remember our first conversation going much like this. I thought you didn't enjoy seeing my true form, so I came to you in my Vessel." Alice's knees hit the bed behind her and she plopped down.
"Castiel?" she lowered her gun. The man nodded. "You got yourself a meatsuit?"
"I find your language most disturbing." He frowned. "Unlike demons, us angels need permission to inhabit a human. If we possess someone incompatible, the body starts to disintegrate and..."
"Okay, I got it." Alice interrupted him. "What do you want?"
"I thought you would be pleased to know that you will no longer be experiencing pain when we meet."
"That sounds kinky..." She watched as Castiel tried to figure out what she meant. The confusion on his face was funny, but she was still curious. She crossed her legs and laid her gun next to her on the bed. "So. Now that I can understand you, what do you want?" Alice had been hearing his voice for a while now, but she couldn't understand the language aside from a name. 'Castiel'.
"Now that I am in my vessel, I can appear to Sam and Dean. I need their help."
"Then why are you here? What do I have to do with any of this?"
"The Apocalypse has to be stopped."
"I still don't see how I fit in here."
"You're immune." Castiel started to pace around her room.
"Yeah, I took my shots."
"Your immunity will be a great asset to this war." He turned a page in the book she as reading.
"Listen, cutie pie, I don't want to be a part in any of this." Alice stood and shut the book he was leafing through. "So, if you'll kindly let yourself out..."
"Your part in this isn't up for discussion." Castiel turned to her. He was taller by nearly a head and looked at her with a slight frown on his face as if confused. He seemed to shake it off a moment later. "I'll come back for you when the time comes." Alice rolled her eyes, but when she refocused, he was gone.
"When the time comes for what?!" she threw her arms up frustratedly. Shaking her head and mumbling curses, she decided to get started on dinner. She put on some music on an old LP player in the corner of the living room and started filling a pot with water.
"Smells great, sweetie." Bobby announced himself as he swung open the door.
"Go wash up, everything's ready." She turned, a dish cloth in her hands as she laid eyes on the men walking through the door.
"Look at you, pretty little housewife, cookin' for us." Dean grinned at her.
"Wanna get shot again?" she grinned back at him.
"Hey, Alice." Sam walked in last and shut the door behind him. He stepped closer, spreding out his arms, obviously going in for a hug, when a resounding WHACK made Dean double back and see Sam's head to the side, his jaw flexing. "Okay, I deserved that."
"You deserve so much worse for vanishing on us like that, you big oaf!"
"Lady, you got some major anger issues." Dean stepped next to his brother.
"Dean, it's fine." Sam straightened up. "Look, Alice, I'm sorry, okay?"
"Are you two fighting again?" Bobby sat at the table. "Can't we have one meal without you two squabbling?"
They had finished dinner and were in the living room while Sam was doing the dishes in an attempt to appease Alice.
"Well, then tell me what else it could be?" Sam called from the kitchen.
"Look, all I know is I was not groped by an angel." Dean was adamantly denying what Alice had told them. "And what the hell is that about an 'immune'?"
"Okay, look, Dean. Why do you think this Castiel would lie to you about it?" Sam was drying his hands on his jeans.
"Maybe he's some kind of demon. Demons lie." Dean handed him a beer.
"Dean, he's an angel. He's immune to all kinds of tricky shit around this house." Alice rubbed her forehead in frustration.
"He was here?" Bobby looked up from his books at her. "Why didn't you tell me?"
"Don't you think that if angels were real, that some hunter somewhere would have seen one... at some point... ever?" Dean stood and started pacing.
"Yeah. You just did, Dean. Hell, Alice has been chatting with one for how long?" Sam looked at her.
"About two months."
"I'm trying to come up with a theory here. Okay? Work with me." Dean was nearly shouting.
"Dean, we have a theory." Alice was getting a headache.
"Yeah, one with a little less fairy dust on it, please." They rolled their eyes at eachother.
"Okay, look. I'm not saying we know for sure. I'm just saying that I think we—"
"We do know for sure, dammit!" Alice interrupted Sam, slamming a thick tome on top of the desk.
"I'm not gonna believe that this thing is a freaking Angel of the Lord because it says so!" Dean threw his hands up.
"I say so!" Alice officially had a headache.
"You three chuckleheads want to keep arguing religion, or do you want to come take a look at this?" Bobby pushed an open book in their direction. They gathered around. "I got stacks of lore—biblical, pre-biblical. Some of it's in damn cuneiform. It all says an angel can snatch a soul from the pit."
"What else?" Dean pushed.
"What else, what?" Bobby frowned.
"What else could do it?"
"Airlift your ass out of the hot box? As far as I can tell, nothing."
"Dean, this is good news." Sam smiled.
"How?"
"Because for once, this isn't just another round of demon crap. I mean, maybe you were saved by one of the good guys, you know?"
"Okay. Say it's true. Say there are angels. Then what? There's a God?"
"At this point, Vegas money's on yeah." Bobby nodded.
"I don't know, guys."
"Okay, look. I know you're not all choirboy about this stuff, but this is becoming less and less about faith and more and more about proof." Sam tried to rationalize.
"Proof?" Alice sat on the couch.
"Yes." Sam sat next to her.
"Proof that there's a God out there that actually gives a crap about me personally? I'm sorry, but I'm not buying it."Dean shook his head.
"Why not?"
"Because why me? If there is a God out there, why would he give a crap about me?"
"Dean—"
"I mean, I've saved some people, okay? I figured that made up for the stealing and the ditching chicks. But why do I deserve to get saved? I'm just a regular guy."
"Apparently, you're a regular guy that's important to the man upstairs." Sam smirked.
"Well, that creeps me out. I mean, I don't like getting singled out at birthday parties, much less by... God."
"Okay, well, too bad, Dean, because I think he wants you to strap on your party hat."
"Fine. What do we know about angels?" he turned to Alice who seemed to be dosing off on the couch.
"Start reading. Alice! Wake up and help." Bobby picked up a pile of fat and weighty looking books and put them on the desk. She started awake and looked at the pile of books, then turned towards Sam.
"You're gonna go get dessert"
"Why me?"
"Because I'm still mad at you."
"Bring pie." Dean added as he picked up a book from the top of the pile.